D-Day: Salmond among world leaders at ceremony

SEVENTY years ago, they stormed the Normandy beaches to liberate Europe from Nazi tyranny. Yesterday, the veterans of the D-Day landings gathered in dazzling sunshine to be celebrated as heroes by the Royal Family and world leaders.

In what is likely to be the last commemoration of this magnitude, the diminishing band of Second World War veterans attended a series of events to mark the anniversary of D-Day.

French President Francois Hollande and the Queen attend the D-Day ceremony. Picture: Getty

Most of the 2,000 men gathered on Sword Beach for the main ceremony were in their 90s. Many were accompanied by grandchildren and great-grandchildren, for whom the Second World War is an unimaginably long time ago.

The age and frailty of the veterans gave yesterday’s commemoration an added poignancy. It was likely to be the final time most of them would ­rekindle old friendships and gaze out over the Normandy beaches where more than 4,000 Allied troops lost their lives on the first day of the biggest ­amphibious assault in history.

In a moving address to dignitaries and veterans, French president François Hollande paid tribute to those who died on a day that “changed the world”. He issued a rallying cry to the world to fight against threats to peace just as the D-Day troops did 70 years ago.

Turning to the veterans, he said: “You are exceptional people. Thank you for having been here in the summer of 1944. Thank you for still being here on 6 June, 2014. France’s gratitude will never be extinguished.”

Mr Hollande went on to ­describe the horror of D-Day, ­invoking the image of young men, not long out of childhood, who would have had in mind a “loving mother, a worried ­father” as they charged into a hail of shells, bullets and barbed wire.

He said: “Before this very beach, this beautiful beach, thousands of young soldiers jumped into the water to run towards deadly German fire. They moved forward, risking their lives to shatter a diabolical regime.

“It is up to us to have the same vision, the same courage, to be just as bright and to have the same determination as those who came to those beaches 70 years ago.”

To sustained applause from an audience of VIPs that ­included the Queen, US president Barack Obama, Russia’s president Vladimir Putin and German chancellor Angela Merkel, Mr Hollande went on to call for the battlefield beaches of Normandy to become a Unesco world heritage site, in recognition of their role in history.

The ceremony on Sword Beach was the focal point of a day of remembrance.

Archive black and white film footage on giant screens and uniformed performers told the story of Nazi atrocities and re-enacted the invasion by 156,000 troops that led eventually to the downfall of Hitler’s regime.

Bill Millin – piper to Lord Lovat, commander of 1 Special Service Brigade on D-Day who played his comrades ashore – was portrayed in the ceremony by French piper Laurent Lecourt, who said afterwards: “It was a great honour for me. I was very happy to take part.”

Some of the archive footage featured a young Princess Elizabeth, who served as a Subaltern with the Women’s Auxiliary Territorial Service during the war where she trained as a mechanic and lorry driver.

Earlier, British and Commonwealth veterans gathered with friends, family and dignitaries for a service at Bayeux Cathedral before walking to the Commonwealth war graves cemetery to pay their respects. The route was lined with hundreds of French villagers who applauded their elderly liberators, shouting “merci” and “thank you”.

Among those being honoured was Robert Laverty, 90, who wore the same Tam O’Shanter he had on in 1944 when he landed on Juno Beach with the Royal Scots Fusiliers.

He said: “It is wonderful to be here. The people are so ­welcoming.”

The Royal Scots, along with the 52nd Lowland Division, Royal Marines based at Fort William and the Black Watch, were among the Scottish units sent into battle on 6 June.

The Queen walked over to chat to servicemen. As she spoke to Don Sheppard, 94, an engineer in the 51st Highland Division who landed on Juno Beach, his daughter Jo said: “I must get a picture. My Dad is meeting the Queen.”

Elsewhere Prime Minister David Cameron, First Minister Alex Salmond and Labour leader Ed Miliband mingled with the crowds and posed for photographs with veterans.

This website and its associated newspaper adheres to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's Editors' Code of Practice.
If you have a complaint about editorial content which relates to inaccuracy or intrusion, then contact the
Editor by clicking here.

If you remain dissatisfied with the response provided then you can contact the IPSO by
clicking here.

The Scotsman provides news, events and sport features from the Edinburgh area. For the best up to date information relating to Edinburgh and the surrounding areas visit us at The Scotsman regularly or bookmark this page.

For you to enjoy all the features of this website The Scotsman requires permission to use cookies.

Find Out More ▼

What is a Cookie?

What is a Flash Cookie?

Can I opt out of receiving Cookies?

About our Cookies

Cookies are small data files which are sent to your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc) from a website you visit. They are stored on your electronic device.

This is a type of cookie which is collected by Adobe Flash media player (it is also called a Local Shared Object) - a piece of software you may already have on your electronic device to help you watch online videos and listen to podcasts.

Yes there are a number of options available, you can set your browser either to reject all cookies, to allow only "trusted" sites to set them, or to only accept them from the site you are currently on.

However, please note - if you block/delete all cookies, some features of our websites, such as remembering your login details, or the site branding for your local newspaper may not function as a result.

The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below:

Revenue Science ►

A tool used by some of our advertisers to target adverts to you based on pages you have visited in the past. To opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Google Ads ►

Our sites contain advertising from Google; these use cookies to ensure you get adverts relevant to you. You can tailor the type of ads you receive by visiting here or to opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Digital Analytics ►

This is used to help us identify unique visitors to our websites. This data is anonymous and we cannot use this to uniquely identify individuals and their usage of the sites.

Dart for Publishers ►

This comes from our ad serving technology and is used to track how many times you have seen a particular ad on our sites, so that you don't just see one advert but an even spread. This information is not used by us for any other type of audience recording or monitoring.

ComScore ►

ComScore monitor and externally verify our site traffic data for use within the advertising industry. Any data collected is anonymous statistical data and cannot be traced back to an individual.

Local Targeting ►

Our Classified websites (Photos, Motors, Jobs and Property Today) use cookies to ensure you get the correct local newspaper branding and content when you visit them. These cookies store no personally identifiable information.

Grapeshot ►

We use Grapeshot as a contextual targeting technology, allowing us to create custom groups of stories outside out of our usual site navigation. Grapeshot stores the categories of story you have been exposed to. Their privacy policy and opt out option can be accessed here.

Subscriptions Online ►

Our partner for Newspaper subscriptions online stores data from the forms you complete in these to increase the usability of the site and enhance user experience.

Add This ►

Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend.